What is stacking in Best Ball Fantasy? It means that you are drafting players from the same team. You are making a correlated bet that the team you are stacking will be a successful offense. That means the players on that team will outperform their ADP and the offense as a whole will outperform their draft capital.
If you play daily fantasy, you are likely familiar with the concept and power of team stacking. I actually believe it can be the most useful in Best Ball for all the reasons below.
The focus is to stack top-tier offenses or undervalued offenses that could have a breakout season. The best example of an offense that turned out to be undervalued in 2023 season is the Houston Texans. QB C.J. Stroud and the Texans offense were all being drafted in the mid-to-late rounds of 2023 drafts. Yet outside of RB Dameon Pierce, all the skill players massively outperformed their ADP and were key to getting a high advance rate to Best Ball playoffs last year. There is one team in particular I believe is capable of delivering winning returns in a value stack.
You can team stack in Best Ball in several different ways, the most common being a quarterback and one or two pass-catchers. I like to be more open and creative with my stacks. I am willing and like to include running back and/or tight end in my stacks with a quarterback.
My favorite team stack is quarterback/running back/wide receiver/tight end from the same team. The beauty of this strategy is that you are likely spreading out your draft capital (early, mid, and late-round picks). Since you are trying to target top offenses or undervalued offenses, by stacking a team from multiple positions, you are soaking up all the touchdown equity for the team.
I like a team stack between two and five players max, and three-to-four from the same team is my favorite team stack. You don't want to overstack a team, because then you are likely taking players that will not contribute enough throughout the season.
Also, keep in mind that you can stack a team without the quarterback. These are often called "skinny stacks" or "mini stacks", but they can be just as powerful.
Sometimes this happens because you get "sniped" or another person in the draft takes your quarterback before you can draft him. Other times you can find valuable pieces after the quarterback has already been drafted. For instance, if both RB James Cook and TE Dalton Kincaid fell to you in a draft and were good value, it's still wise to have a mini-Bills stack even without QB Josh Allen.
Since success in the playoffs is key to profiting in Best Ball, you want to look for teams to stack that should be successful in the regular season (Weeks 1-14), but also can have success in the Best Ball playoffs (Weeks 15-17).
For the regular season, look at teams' strength of schedule and potential to be in several high-scoring, close games. For the playoffs, look at the same factors, but I also weight teams higher that have multiple dome games or games in warm weather locations.
For instance, this season, two of my favorite teams to target to stack are the Houston Texans and San Francisco 49ers. The Texans have two of the three playoff weeks in a dome, while the 49ers have all three games during the Best Ball playoffs in either Florida or California. However, neither is my best value stack for 2024 Best Ball drafts, which I have shared at SportsLine.
